Slept like a log. Spook almost didn't let me get out of the shower, she was in such a hurry to contemplate the drain. Or so I thought. She batted at something, probably water droplets, on the far wall, and rushed out again, sat down and licked the water off her tail. Her tail was stolen from a raccoon, I think.

Hgl was a comfortable 119.

Out the door half an hour early. Traffic was miserable on 101 until I got to my exit, and discovered the whole mess was because drivers kept moving to the right lanes as they became exit-only, for not-their-exit.

Quite a crowd in the break room, grabbed a banana, HB egg and diet Coke, and a Kind bar, and a big bag with almost no actual caramel popcorn in it. The bag's marketing blurb says this is a feature - packing less Bad Stuff in a snack bag. Gag me.

The morning started with troubleshooting three different devices, almost simultaneously. Two STBs and a TV. Was asked to test a new-to-me feature called Talkback, where the TV does text-to-speech on anything you move the focus to. It's one of the accessibility features allegedly for the blind, except it is impossible for a blind person to turn it on herself, because it's a long series of clicks on the remote. They tell me this will be fixed with a simple key combination. It speaks 84 languages, some more than others. I need to file a feature request because the Thai voice is too soft. I won't be filing one about the Hebrew voice being too polite. ;-)

Boss says for now just test English, we have localization testers for the other languages.

Lots of people passing by on their way to and from the company store. Developer conference check-in was today, a couple of miles away at the city amphitheater. Many of them carrying out the incredibly plain company paper carrying bags. No color, no logo, just a line of text.

Lunchtime, the break room was almost empty, just the people who stock the snacks, two women who usually take a lunch break there and one very tall slender woman eating something unidentifiable in the brown cardboard containers Google provides instead of leak-proof food containers. She spent the whole time standing, her meal on one of those tall tables.

No break today, because just before break time a worker bee came by and installed a combination lock on my door. He had instructions to do three, but was unclear on where to put the other two. Actually, he was supposed to install 5, plus pick the lock on a 6th door and re-key it. I messaged Boss, she will sort it out. Meanwhile, my 3-digit code is in my memory and in my Keep app. At first glance I thought it was the number of degrees Kelvin which equaled 0° F or C, but I was off by a lot. The best mnemonic device turned out to be an area code. The city with this area code is both easy to remember and has no connection at all to me or the company.

Chances are I'll forget the city before I forget the number.

One of those three test devices was supposed to update, but it didn't. It's a European box, so probably will do it on their time zone. Hopefully it will be updated by the time I get there tomorrow.

Email arrived inviting me to callbacks for Fiddler, for Lazar Wolf. There is one other guy called. Cleverly hidden in the callback schedule is the name of the guy playing Tevye, I'm 90% sure he was pre-cast. Which is not a bad thing, in this case. I have met him, and I think he's an excellent choice. Looking forward to reading/singing with him tomorrow night. Once again I drew the 9 pm slot, but this time we're in the theater, a far far better environment than last night's tryouts. They will do dance callbacks Thursday there, I am not called for those.

Planning for the future, advance ordered a bunch of saffron crocus bulbs which will ship mid-August. The theory is they bloom in late fall, are easy to cultivate, and the reason saffron is so expensive is one flower doesn't produce much. So I ordered 45.

Also ordered was a thermometer/barometer/hygrometer for work. It has a remote for outdoor temp/humidity which I may or may not set up. There's something wrong with the climate control in my room, but I need objective data.

Home, traffic was a mess, even the back roads. 101 was a parking lot. Checking the map, what I thought might have been an alternate escape route on the near side of 101 is a loop back to the alternate back road via the outline of a golf course.

After taking care of some online biz, I took the beef out of the marinade, washed it off, set it aside and put some rice in the cooker. It took a lot of rinsing to get the dust & bran off of the rice.

Chopped up half an onion and some garlic, put a tiny bit of peanut oil in the wok, and little by little built my trademark green curried beef recipe. Had a panic moment when the first carton of coconut milk had gone bad and the second was coconut creme, which needed to be mixed with water - no problemo because the stuff in the wok was creating enough of that. Bamboo shoots, straw mushrooms, green peas, baby corn, water chestnuts and half a small packet of curry paste (about a tablespoon).

First serving was over rice, and it was so delicious I went back for seconds, but without the rice this time.

Mango agar treats for dessert (left over from non-break at work).

I need to pack up the rest of the rice and freeze it, same for the main dish. I think there are two more dinners left.

Printed out the sides and music for tomorrow. The music is a little higher than I remember it. The script is the same, but I'm a better actor now, and have some ideas.